When playing EvE online many years ago, I was surprised by one enemy militia player.
Context: we were living partially in low sec systems where PvP was allowed. That's where PvP players from big alliances came when there were no 5k ppl fights for system control.
I've noticed one enemy player consitently being very chivalry about fights. He returned loot to less experienced people he won a fight with and was always humble in both defeat and victory. He even once returned a very expensive module that dropped from my ship after he won a fight with me. And that showed clearly I wasn't a new player that needed taking care off.
That taught me a lot about playing and general behavior in life. That it's not always about your results, but it's always about your style.
My first "player encounter" was with someone who patiently took me through many of the basics for over an hour at the very beginning (like 15 minutes in), then tricked me into attacking them so they could blow me up and get away with it. They were even in the process of explaining why some players might do it, but just left out the important parts.
That's the kind of troll I love. Technically they taught me another useful thing in the process, and it cost me effectively nothing because I could just reroll the character. High effort and low payoff is the best kind.
It might surprise you, but the tutorial nowadays actually gets you blown up twice. It's so strange, that the game actually tells you what to do now and you don't have to ask in help.
Low sec runs by different rules from the gankers in high sec or the politics of null sec. Especially if you're in the Faction Warfare zones. The standard view in Eve is that if you're in a fair fight, you're playing the game incorrectly. But with FW, a good chunk of the fights are honorable duels. And since FW players want more fights and more players in that zone, refunding ships for newbies and setting up balanced duels and rematches are common.
I never played EVE Online much, but I've heard there was a time some player were camp-killing newbies (known as Suicide ganking) in Jita star system which is a tradehub with a lot of activities. It got so bad CCP has to ban players who's doing that.
Another game, Elite Dangerous, also faces ganking problems, some people just doing it shamelessly (judging by the videos they uploaded), some even do it with cheat enabled.
Based on that, I think what you've experienced is rather rare. Maybe the individual are just a good person who's willing to do good even in a competitive environment, and you're lucky to have encountered such person.
Context: we were living partially in low sec systems where PvP was allowed. That's where PvP players from big alliances came when there were no 5k ppl fights for system control.
I've noticed one enemy player consitently being very chivalry about fights. He returned loot to less experienced people he won a fight with and was always humble in both defeat and victory. He even once returned a very expensive module that dropped from my ship after he won a fight with me. And that showed clearly I wasn't a new player that needed taking care off.
That taught me a lot about playing and general behavior in life. That it's not always about your results, but it's always about your style.